Countless boxes of matzah. A generous supply of wine and grape juice. Enough eggs to last the week. Dessert options. While this may seem like a typical Passover grocery list, it is still unattainable to many.

This year, B’nai B’rith’s Project H.O.P.E. (Help Our People Everywhere) once again worked to ensure that many of those in need of assistance—whether because of financial, medical, or mobility reasons, or because of vicinity to a grocer that carries kosher-for-Passover food—were able to celebrate Passover this spring.

B’nai B’rith’s Project H.O.P.E. supplied thousands of kosher-for-Passover food packages to community members who cannot afford the special holiday foods. B’nai B’rith volunteers, in some cases joined by other community groups, delivered food in Philadelphia, Long Island, N.Y., the Bronx, N.Y., Upper Manhattan, Connecticut, and Washington-suburban Maryland and Virginia. B’nai B’rith volunteers also assisted local Jewish family services and synagogues to bring holiday food to needy individuals in their community.

The community action project, created by B’nai B’rith Brooklyn leaders from the former District One in the late 1960s, has expanded to communities throughout the Northeast and across the United States. The recipients include singles, couples, families, assisted living residents and group homes for the disabled.

Hundreds of volunteers pitched in this year to help fund raise and purchase the materials, as well as organize the logistics of packing and delivery, for nearly 3,000 packages of kosher-for-Passover food. These packages included eggs, matzah, gefilte fish, borscht, soup, grape juice, macaroons and in some communities fresh or cooked chicken.

In Philadelphia, 540 families received Passover food. Volunteers from B’nai B’rith, synagogues and BBYO, Nassau-Suffolk Region packed and delivered 270 packages throughout Nassau and Suffolk County in Long Island, N.Y. In the Bronx and Upper Manhattan nearly 700 packages were distributed in cooperation with the Bronx Jewish Community Council. Packing and delivery was coordinated at the B’nai B’rith Project H.O.P.E.–Adelstein Family Senior Housing facility in the Bronx.

In Connecticut, 330 packages were packed at the JCC in New Haven, and then delivered by B’nai B’rith volunteers and representatives from the BBYO Connecticut region, the Masons, and the Boy Scouts. In Virginia, 115 packages were delivered to 40 locations. Participants from local lodges and synagogues in Washington, D.C. and Maryland delivered packages to 500 recipients.

Year after year, Project H.O.P.E. fulfills the B’nai B’rith tenets of helping those in need, and connecting them with the Jewish people.

To all volunteers and donors who make this possible, year after year, we send our thanks and best wishes for a healthy and Happy Passover. For more information please contact Rhonda Love at rlove@bnaibrith.org.